This Afternoon
by virtuosoe
Summary: The afternoon of the man who killed Katara's mother.


The clouds are very dark outside. And of course, the city is always dreary. The effort I'm taking to sustain the garden seems futile if the sun will never shine. It's even more futile if no one will find happiness with its results. Just when I thought it was a good idea….

"Yon Rha, you lazy piece of work. I need something." The shrill voice penetrates my calm disposition.

"Yes, Mother?" I suppress a sigh. "What is it?"

"The tomato-carrots from your garden are too hard for my gums." She spits every word. "I need something soft and juicy!"

I wonder what approach I haven't taken in a while. I say cautiously, "Would you like something else from the garden? I would be happy to-"

Wrong approach.

"Forget your stupid garden! Get your grimy heinie to the market and buy me some real food!"

An order.

I grab my woven basket and make my way to the market. The wind plays with my hair and my clothes, picking up each second. The dirt underneath my feet could turn to mud any minute; I pick up my pace to beat the storm.

The market is only so close to my home. The same people there are the ones that are always there-the only workers. I dawdle around the fruits, each of them too soft or rough. I toss some into the basket carelessly. Mother wouldn't care either way.

The worker, whose name I've yet to learn, smiles and says, "Some weather today."

"I'll say," I grunt. I have no time for small talk. The wind rushes violently; I hear a crash behind me, and a wind chime makes a musical tone. "Hello?" I turn to the worker, looking with only my left eye. My right one is incompetent. "Did you see someone?"

He shakes his head, but that is no consolation. I pay for the food and leave, my senses heightened. I walk briskly back. I likely sound idiotic, threatening a force following me that isn't even there. Then an actual force comes-rain. I turn my head down and walk as quickly as possible without running. The rain does not help my vision. I almost stumble over a rock.

"Nobody sneaks up on me without getting burned!" I turn around and-I aim at the thin air to spook my pursuer but miscalculate due to vision and set a tree ablaze. I am prepared for a brief moment. I relax my stance and collect my cargo. I scrutinize my surroundings once more. There. My threat did its job.

I turn to walk again. I tumble over what has to be another rock and fall on my face. I drop my basket in a blur. A blast of heat barely touches my head. I sit up and assess my surroundings, prepared to fight back.

"We weren't behind the bush." A teenage boy stands in front of me dressed in all black. I look at his face for some wisp of recognition but cannot seem to look at him any longer; he's trapped me in front of a rock, and I cower. He continues to warn me, "And I wouldn't try Firebending again."

The boy is there for a fight, and I will likely lose. He has to have a crew with him or knows some tricks that I don't. I give up. "Whoever you are, take my money-take whatever you want. I'll cooperate." Cooperation is vital to a shadow; obstinacy results in unintended consequences.

Then a girl, who I assume is part of the boy's team, approaches me. She shows me her whole face, and I can tell she's from the Water Tribe immediately. "Do you know who I am?" Hostility laces her voice.

"No," I say truthfully but warily. "I'm not sure…."

"You better remember me like your life depends on it. Why don't you take a closer look?"

"Yes, yes…. I remember you now." My statement starts off as a lie, but it ends up the complete truth. The memory floods my head. "You're the little Water Tribe girl," I barely get out. I remember the cold Southern Water Tribe. I remember the resentment I felt towards the very last Waterbender who was so stubborn and so obstinate.

I remember not taking her as prisoner.

And who could forget the frightened, little girl who had called the woman Mom, likely the very last child I saw with both eyes?

"She lied to you." The little girl, who has now grown up, tears me back into reality. "She was protecting the last Waterbender."

"What?" My heart races. I'd thought… they were all gone. The woman being the very last one. "Who?"

The girl grimaces. She screams, "Me!"

The world stops for a moment; the rain suspends in midair and forms a dome over our heads. I stare at the last Waterbender from the southern tribe. My heart starts to flood with forgiveness, hopelessness in disguise.

Suddenly an array of icicles rushes toward me. I tremble. I don't know what feeling overcomes me. Fear? Regret? Rue that I killed the girl's mother because she was so obstinate. And rue that I was too aware that obstinacy invariably results in unintended consequences.

All in one second I say goodbye to my mother, though I'm not sure if she'd care, to my children who likely think I'm dead already, to my life that's one torturous event away from me.

But the icicles don't pierce my skin. They only stop so close enough for me to feel their cold. The ice turns into water and cascades over my head.

This is when the want to forgive truly overwhelms me.

I reel. "I did a bad thing," I gasp as I force myself onto my hands and knees. No, I did an unforgivably horrendous thing. "I know I did. And you deserve revenge." Revenge that isn't my life, but…. "So why don't you take my mother? That would be fair." No, it wouldn't. But my senses are faint and disjointed.

"I always wondered what kind of person could do such a thing," the girl says. All the enmity in her tone is gone. "But now that I see you, I think I understand. There's just… nothing inside you. Nothing at all. You're pathetic and sad and empty." The anger is returning. I can recognize the timbre of her voice; it's the tone that preludes something that can't be reversed-a death knell.

The end is so near that I begin to sob. "Please, spare me." The request is so weak, but it's all I can come up with.

"As much as I hate you," she says, the final words I'll ever hear, "… I just can't do it."

Two feelings surge through me at once: relief along with the knowledge of my pure luck; and remorse.

Before I can form a true though incomplete response, the boy and girl have turned and gone. I sit up after perhaps ten minutes of weeping in the downpour. I grab my sodden produce, thankful yet upset. The girl is a shadow in my mind, and she will never leave. I killed her mother, and she didn't kill me. Could I ever even judge the way I felt about that alone?

No.

I walked home in a shiver, my bones chilled frozen from the frigidity of that morning at the Southern Water Tribe.


End file.
